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"What do you mean you've seen the diadem?" Valeria locked the door to Alister's bar. The place was empty besides the four of them being there.
"The Whein gives you a four minute limit to find it," Roma explained, unbuttoning his tux.
Gabriel kept a close eye on him. He seemed like a seasoned player but after all it was still Gabriel's first day. No matter how much research he did on Sweven there was nothing like indulging in the experience first hand.
Everything felt real, unlike a dream where he was unable to see fully face figures. It was like he was actually standing on the hardwood in the bar.
"So why didn't you grab it?" Valeria asked, standing next to Gabriel at the bar while he asked for a shot of tequila.
"I ran out of time," he went on. "And there's no way in hell I'm going back there."
Gabriel saw the expression on Valeria's face after he downed the shot. The burning sensation trailed its way down his throat and into his chest. "Why not?"
Roma looked as if the answer was obvious, "What am I gonna do with it?"
"Win," Gabriel spoke, taking a few steps forward, spreading his fingers apart. "May I?"
Roma looked straight ahead at his eyes, they were about the same height. "Who are you?"
"I'm, uh, what you call a 'time jumper'."
Roma held out his hand, "King Eldervair."
Gabriel chuckled to himself, taking the hand and bringing his other up to Roma's temple. He heard Valeria shuffle her feet towards them, "Relax, I got this."
In the hazel of Roma's eyes, Gabriel could clearly see images rewinding back to them at the clan gathering, then moments before when Roma'd made his way through the White Rabbit.
"Come on," he muttered to repeatedly to himself, rewinding faster over occasion trips to the Seattle Sea strip club, daily hits at the shooting range, and a grab of a hand with a triangle tattoo, until he caught a glimpse of the diadem Roma had found approximately seventy-three hours prior to that moment.
In the corner of his peripheral, Gabriel couldn't make out Valeria's face when the images in Roma's eyes formulated into a bright blue hue and traveled their way from his eyes to across his cheek bones and along Gabriel's arms, neck and face until Roma's memories had duplicated themselves and transferred into Gabriel's mind.
He let his hands fall, taking a deep breath as he focused his new memories onto the Diadem of Orion.
Valeria caught Roma as he clutched his chest, taking heaves of air in and out his lungs. "Did you just ..."
"Yeah, sorry, had to see if you were telling the truth," Gabriel leaned his weight onto the bar. "Don't worry, you're doing great. Some people faint their first time."
